My parents and long time boyfriends parents both came from dictatorships. They came to this country for a better life. When you are shaking in your sleep on the verge of tears and hear Trump supporters outside of your walls celebrating, fear feels like something you have to make friends with. I don’t want to become my parents who lived in so much fear that even once they moved to the U.S it was hard to talk about the past. Worried that someone might be listening and make them disappear. Straightening their hair to cover up their blackness in hopes of not being noticed. I do not want to and refuse to live my life that way. I will not be living in fear although it seems that now more than ever I will be living WITH it.

America was always the girl who passively bullied us in school. Made…